The Tree Shepherd's grievance
"Whoosh!" "Whoosh!" "Whoosh!"...
The thorns lashed through the night air with a rush of wind, making their sheer force easy to imagine.
And every sweep of those spikes, glinting coldly under the searchlights, sent up a spray of fresh blood. Mixed with the rats' screams and the surrounding flashes of electricity, it painted a picture of hell.
Was this why the rats had been fleeing underground?
The question had barely arisen before they ran out of time to consider it.
Because with the appearance of the Deathbringer Thorn, countless rats had gone mad!
If the electrical traps, intense lighting, and large numbers of humans around them had made them hesitate before, now they charged wildly toward the outside of the encirclement as though desperate to die.
"Flamethrowers!"
At the officer's command, the armed police soldiers carrying flamethrowers in the front rank squeezed their already sweat-slick triggers.
Furious flames roared out, igniting rat after rat as they trampled their own kind to escape hell.
The ones that escaped were all smaller rats. Not a single one of the seemingly terrifying giant rats made it out. They either fell in the electrical traps or were slaughtered by the thorns.
The fierce, searing flames swept left and right, setting the rats alight as though sweeping a floor.
The smaller rats could not withstand such damage at all. Within seconds, nearly half their bodies were cooked through.
The smell of scorched meat spread across the scene.
Disgusting as it was, the situation the armed police soldiers, police officers, and firefighters had feared did not arise. Almost none of the rats could escape the blockade formed by the incendiary bombs and flamethrowers.
And though the rats' numbers were terrifying, they were not endless. After a few minutes, their flow began to